HVR-1600 vs. VistaView DA-1IN1-I (vs. DirecTV H20)

[htpc_user]

This review may be moot since both of these cards are rather old and the VistaView seems majorly unpopular, but I thought I would give a little info on what I’ve found. 

I had trouble with the VistaView card working properly in SageTV when I first got it.  I took out the 1600 and put the VistaView in its place.  The trouble was, the analog portion of the card would not work at all (it did work as it was supposed to when I tried it my son’s MCE PC).  Because of this, I could not use it so back in went the 1600 and out with the VistaView. 

When I put my new Blu-ray drive in the other day, I decided to put the VistaView in and keep the 1600 in as well; I had to remove my gigabit LAN card to do it, but since I have yet to get a gigabit switch or router it didn’t really matter.  I use an antenna for OTA and the analog out from DirecTV is S-Video; I don’t have cable. 

What I found is that the VistaView does a much better job at tuning in stations than the 1600.  My most troublesome channel is 7.1/7.2.  I watched 7.2 for about an hour with no drop out.  When I tried with the 1600, it just said, “NO SIGNAL”.  A little later, I tried switching channels and again, the VistaView could tune in 13.1 where the 1600 could not.  In this case, it was probably due to the antenna needing to be turned because normally the position for 13.1 and 7.1 is not the same.  However it is interesting that with the VistaView it was able to tune 13.1 without turning the antenna; this would result in fewer trips getting up to turn the rotor. 

Occasionally, while I was watching 7.2, I would switch my input on the TV back over to the DirecTV H20 to see how it was doing tuning in 7.2 (as 7.1/7.2 is still the most trouble for the H20, as well).  I did happen to catch the channel breaking up on the H20, and it was not on the VistaView at that same time (I was able to tell, because I didn’t switch the audio on my receiver so what I was hearing was still coming from the HTPC).  I think now I need to do further testing between the VistaView and the H20.  I have never been pleased with the H20’s ATSC tuning, and it comes mainly from its inability to tune 7.1/7.2.  When I used a Sony SAT-HD300 DirecTV receiver with ATSC tuning I rarely had a problem with 7.1, but when my dish was upgraded I had to switch to the H20 to get the MPEG-4 HD channels and give the Sony to my son to watch DirecTV on.

I wish SageTV would improve on their Signal Meter for showing the strength of the signal of the digital channel.  First, you have to go through too many layers to get to it, and second, I don’t feel it’s very accurate.  Every time I look at it, if the channel is getting tuned in by Sage it shows 100%.  It either shows 0% if I’m not getting any thing or 100% if I’m getting it.  When compared to the H20, it might show 75% on the same channel.  I believe the H20 to be more accurate.

On a side note is the quality of the HTPC vs. the H20.  I noticed while watching Seinfeld on channel 7.2 during my testing of the VistaView that the video quality was lower than that of the H20.  7.2 is MyNetworkTV and is actually broadcast in 480i.  On the HTPC I noticed in people’s shirts (this is where it was most noticeable), that the shirt seems to go in and out of focus.  One second George’s pattern on his sweater seemed to be detailed, the next the patterns and holes seemed to run together.  I switched over to the H20 and it did not suffer from this. 

I’ve never noticed this before when watching ATSC on the HTPC, but after thinking about it, that was the first time that I’ve ever really watched a non-HD channel on a digital station on the HTPC.  It’s always been in HD before.  The other thing that I found strange was that I did not notice this problem during commercials.  The commercials’ quality was usually pretty good and vibrant in color and on par with the H20 when switching back and forth and comparing.  My setup on the HTPC is Radeon HD 2600xt (8.5 drivers), using Cyberlink PDVD7 decoder in SageTV, and Overlay mode (VMR9 is jerky when watching TV; it’s OK for DVD).  What do you think is the cause?

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